Considering that cutting the deficit retards growth, and Obama inherited the Great Recession, this is pretty astonishing we've had this much deficit reduction without tanking growth. It does help explain, however, why growth has been steady but sluggish.

The CBPP says we need an additional 1.4T in deficit reduction, and that's it: our long term debt would be stabilized under our current economy. Which means, of course, if we could get the economy growing at a 3%+ clip again, the long term deficit is put on a downward spiral.